Prof A Olowofoyeku (The African Chief) wrote:
On 3 Mar 2003 at 1:28, Frank Heckenbach wrote:
This would be close to something I have in mind as "libraries" (not implemented yet, maybe BP or Delphi compatible, don't remember exactly), i.e. basically one unit/library as a "container" for several units.
You can have that in BP/Delphi, with regard to "libraries" (i.e., DLLs). As you all know, a DLL is simply a self-contained executable that exports routines. So the analogy is not the same with units. If we are going to use the reserved word "library", I suggest that we keep it BP-compatible and restrict to dynamically linked libraries.
As you know, in GCC, the difference between static and dynamic libraries is very small. You need some options to create a dynamic lib, and that's all. (When using them, you can force linking static ones with `-static', but otherwise the linker will find dynamic or static ones automatically.)
So if we implement a syntax for `libarary', it should not have any relevance to whether the object code is linked statically or dynamically (or perhaps even as a set of object files).
So I was talking more about the syntactical and semantical aspects of `library' in BP/Delphi, not the implementation details (which includes how to link them).
[...]
An alternative could be the use of some symbols instead of new keywords (but I don't have a good idea for this yet), or a combination of keywords, such as `uses external ...' or `uses export ...' or `export uses' etc. (just playing around with words ... ;-).
"propagates"?
"instead of new keywords"!?
Frank